Down in the Delta, Outsiders Who Arrived to Teach Now Find a Home

[flamingdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/us/down-in-the-delta-outsiders-who-arrived-to-teach-now-find-a-home.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

The retweeted twitter title that caught my eye: NYT Jew-spotting in Arkansas!

ELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — If you are from around here, you know Doug Friedlander is not.
Born in New York City and reared on Long Island, Mr. Friedlander is Jewish and vegetarian and has a physics degree from Duke.

But here he is, at 37, living in a roomy white house in this hard-luck Delta town of 12,000. Mr. Friedlander and his wife, Anna Skorupa, are part of a gradual flow of young, university-trained outsiders into the Delta’s shrinking communities, many of whom arrived through Teach for America and stayed beyond their two-year commitment.

Mr. Friedlander is now the ambitious director of the county’s Chamber of Commerce. He frets over the kudzu that is devouring abandoned buildings. He attends Rotary Club meetings, where he sidesteps the lunch offerings for carnivores. He organizes workshops to modernize small businesses and pushes tourism and the development of a decimated downtown along the banks of the Mississippi.

The mechanization of agriculture, lost manufacturing and a legacy of poverty and racism have taken their toll on the Delta, but Mr. Friedlander is thrilled to be here. He left his job at a software company in North Carolina’s Research Triangle nine years ago, taking a two-thirds pay cut, to “make a bigger difference.”

[Warpy]

1. Kudzu is just another missed opportunity

The roots can be located, dug up, dried, and ground into flour that is very easy to digest and is used to make things for babies and gluten intolerant adults.

However, I'm not a bit surprised by this story. I moved to NM from Boston and it was like moving to another planet at first. However, it's home now.

[flamingdem]

2. I can't imagine but it's intriguing to consider that moving into that environment

So Kudzu is edible, who knew.

[Warpy]

3. The roots are

and the fiber freak in me wonders if the stems can be processed into usable fiber somehow, bring textiles back onshore.

They've done that with bamboo, soy and other vegetal products. It shouldn't be much of a leap to use kudzu if there is any fiber at all in those stems, and I seem to remember there is.

But yes, the roots are edible when they've been processed into flour.

Here's a great article on it. I can attest to the smell of the blossoms: http://www.azcentral.com/style/hfe/food/articles/2007/03/20/20070320cookingkudzu0320.html

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Just google "kudzu fabrics" ...

I posted some specific links in the Great Kudzu Thread in The Lounge a few years back.

[Warpy]

11. Neat!

I've been getting samples of other vegetal rayons in my Etsy orders from my favorite dyer. They're universally a pain in the ass to spin, but the yarn they produce is gorgeous.

So I'm not terribly surprised about Kudzu fiber. Given another 50 years of climate change, everybody might be dressed in it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. The plant removes craving for alcohol,

the blossoms make a jelly rich in grape flavor and taste
the vines hold a LOT of water

It has a lot of uses, very few which are being applied around here, which is a shame, given how much of the damn stuff there is.

[Warpy]

6. It might be a major cash crop

as climate change does its thing. It insists on growing in any sort of favorable condition, so fast people swear they can see it grow.

Humans are adaptable. When wheat and corn go off the menu, perhaps kudzu root flour will replace them.

[alfie]

7. And goats love to eat it. NT

[Warpy]

8. Well, there's a superior meat and milk supply

Jamaican coworkers once brought curried goat to a pot luck. It was really very good stuff. I never drink milk, but I used to make goat's milk kefir that was wonderful stuff whizzed with a few frozen berries.

[bvar22]

5. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone.

Arkansas is one of America's best kept secrets.
My Wife & I moved here from Minneapolis in 2006,
though we chose the other side of the state, The Ouachita Mountains.

We came here looking for an independent, sustainable, low carbon footprint lifestyle,
and found it here.
We haven't regretted a single day,
[font size=1 color=gray] But Shhh! Don't tell anyone.
We don't want the Yuppies coming here and ruining it.[/font]

[BlueToTheBone]

9. And if we're not diligent, we're going to be koched!

We're fighting a massive powerline project here in the Boston mountains and it's been enormous so far. The next phase are hearings in LR on the 26th of August. We need to have massive support to stop this horror...a 150' wide 80 mile long swath cut through the heart of the forest and headwaters of the White River.